“The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.” Abraham Lincoln
Here it is Drivelers. Yes, It is July. Can you believe it or what? Personally, it seems like it was June only yesterday. Are we having fun so far this summer? For us in Cedar Rapids, the city of five seasons, rain has been our summer so far. Lots of rain. Not quite in the category of 2008 but wet none the less. Sunday night it rained like crazy. We had 5 inches of rain at our house over night. On the news this morning there were reports all over the city of flooding. I have been here since 1969 and have not seen anything like it. There were flash floods all over. Water gushing so fast that it tore out all of the asphalt patches in the streets, flooded basements and stores. What a mess. Daughter 2 had some wet carpet in her 2008 flood survivor home but wasn't terrible. Thanks for small favors. On a brighter note, I had one of the best nights of sleep in a long time. I slept right through it.
I had an appointment in Iowa City yesterday. Or I was supposed to have one. They called in the morning and canceled which was really nice of them. We rescheduled for later this month. I was really looking forward to it. I was scheduled for a consultation with the Veterans Hospital GI people. I felt a bit honored to be allowed in a meeting with this group. Being an ex-GI myself. I wasn't certain what to expect so I asked the lady who called. Wish I hadn't asked. My bubble was burst big time. Come to find out “GI” had nothing to do with my military service in the strict sense. Perhaps in some perverse way it could be thought of having been reamed a new a$##@%e by my government. Anyway, it seems this “GI” is short for “Gastrointestinal” tract. Simply put your intestinal tract. The reason for the consult seems to be to determine if they want to be involved and get their hands dirty. Boy, am I bummed.
From time to time I have spoken to and about stupidity. I have also linked the problem to a cousin – the idiot. With each passing day I get less patient with this type of person. I know that the causative factors are many and not necessarily something they can control. As I listen to Ricky Nelson's recording of “The Garden Party” I can't help but get upset at the souls in Madison Square Gardens that night in 1971. You see he came out with long hair and costumes of the times. He sang some oldies but mostly his new stuff. That was what he was supposed to do. Seems as though the crowd wanted the 1950's Ricky, he didn't exist anymore. They booed him off the stage. Put yourself in his shoes.
But that is only one of thousands or millions examples of stupid that occurs everyday. More recently I was in our local Fareway Fine Foods Grocery Store. I was tasked with getting hamburger and ground turkey. I waited patiently at the ever busy meat counter for my turn to come around. A guy saunters up next to me. He was somewhere around 8 feet 10 inches tall and at least 600 pounds. Obviously used to getting his own way, he proceeds to bump in front of me. I was not pleased but my PTSD training told me to stay calm. I waited looking over the delicious array of meats. I daydreamed a bit about being a butcher and preparing meat for market. I had always thought I would like that. I was blasted out of my daydream by the loud burly voice coming from the Bunyonesc guy. He was berating this still wet behind the ears counter guy. The poor counter guy couldn't do anything to please this dude. Finally, I decided PTSD training had to take a back seat. I started laughing out loud at this guy. All 5 feet 4 inches of me. I happened to be clad in my most evil Vietnam Veteran attire and had a scowl on as I laughed. Flames came from his nostrils as he looked down at me and said “You got a problem?” In my most bad a## voice I could muster, I replied, “Dude, Hy Vee is just down the street. If this man can't satisfy you, perhaps you had better go there.” I noted that the people standing around me moved back a couple of paces. They obviously anticipated that my body would shortly be occupying that spot on the floor once the big guy punched me. To everyone's surprise and to my ENORMOUS relief, he shut his mouth, spoke to the young man politely, got his meat and left. WOW! The kid was very relieved. I think he excused himself so he could clean up in the bathroom. Just another day for me. Ha, Ha! Sometimes stupid is as stupid does. What that means and has to do with this, I don't know but I liked the sound of it.
Fortunately, stupid is not a permanent condition. Whereas stupid is almost always irreversible. Ergo, myself. I flutter in and out of stupid on a daily basis. I think it has something to do with an allergic reaction to tiddly winks and pik up stiks. I really can't explain it and Mom couldn't either but she had a firm conviction that convinced me. I remember her using that same line from “Christmas Story”, “Don't run with that, you’ll poke your eye out.” Well, I never poked my eye out obviously. I do have quite a number of scars around my eyes from those pik up stiks. As for the tiddly winks, it was related to me by a number of people, all relatives currying favor with my Mom, that this actually happened. My older brother, my senior by 7 years and should have known better, challenged me to a tiddly wink game. Wanting to show off his superiority over me, he bet that the loser would ingest a set of tiddlies. Macho Doyce agreed. Later, “Macho” was replaced with “Stupid”. We played, my brother cheated, I lost, I ingested. It was told to me that for several days after the ingestion, tiddlies were expelled with every passing of wind. Is that “Stupid” or not? I only fell for that once. Sure there have been other excursion to the other world over the years, but I would always come back. Now in my 68th year, I really don't remember what a tiddly or a wink was. Please help.
A doctor friend of mine, well not really a friend, let's just say, an acquaintance, theorized that I may be suffering from some brain injury suffered during my childhood. I assured him that I gave myself many opportunities for significant brain damage in my formative years. As luck would have it, I was born to a relatively poor farm family so all of the occurrences of head trauma went untreated. If it didn't bleed profusely, no medical attention was necessary. He surmised that I might be afflicted with a left parasellar-sellar and sphenoid wing meningioma with intraorbital extension as described above encasing and compressing the left internal carotid artery and the left optic nerve. That was my feeling also. I do remember a headache once.
All I really know is that fresh ground French Roast tastes really good in the morning. The dull pulsating pain above my left eye once bathed with the aroma of French Roast is completely gone for a while. Don't know why that is but that is my story and I am sticking by it. If you should have one of these orbital sellar thingies, drink French Roast. Shoot, this pot is already gone. I best let you go so I can take care of this pain in my head. Have just a great day and remember....
There is no need to thank me for this valuable information: I'm doing it as a public service. – TA!
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